Vinyl Care

I was in a similar situation, having hardly played records after CDs came out.

Thanks to this forum, I discovered the bible on how to clean records.  It is PACVR-3rd-Edition - Precision Aqueous Cleaning of: Vinyl Records.

Like the bible, at 192 pages it is pretty lengthy.  But unlike the bible, the author Neil Antin is still alive and is active on this forum!

What I have distilled from this is that

1. newer line contact stylus profiles read information from parts of the groove walls that have not been 'worn out' by older stylus shapes
2. ultrasonic cleaning is the best way to dig contaminants from deep in the groove
3. most contamination is far too small to see with visible light and most people do not have access to electron microscopes

So I bought a Chinese ultrasonic record cleaner for less than A$300 and use it once on all my records, old or new.  Polysorbate 20 is the 'detergent' and I use water passed through a Brita ion-exchange filter.  Then I rinse the records using a very dilute mix of Ilfoton photographic wetting agent and let them air dry on the rack that came with the machine.

I replace the inner sleeves with Japanese Nagaoka anti-static sleeves.

Before playing any side, I use an AudioQuest carbon fibre anti-static record brush just in case there is any dust.

After switching to this regime, my stylus stays clean far longer.  When it needs cleaning, I use Audio Technica stylus cleaning fluid brushed from the rear (my main cartridge is an Audio Technica with a Micro-line stylus).  I follow up by lowering the stylus a couple of times into a gel pad which is a purpose built alternative to clay - the DS Audio ST-50 stylus cleaner.

The bottom line is that most of the old pops and crackles have audibly disappeared though nothing can remove scratches.  I believe static electricity is the biggest cause of surface noise and water is an excellent way of discharging static.  I also think static charges are created in the groove when it is rubbed by a diamond stylus.  Charged particles of dust are attracted and stick incredibly firmly - the inverse square law of attraction applies. 

I sometimes use the carbon fibre brush after playing a side, especially if I see any dust.  And I do use a dust cover while playing.

@faustuss 

As far as the diamond creating "static" as you people like to call it, last I heard diamonds are made of carbon which is the most conductive material known to man.

You must still be a few years short of getting a degree in materials science!

Carbon has four valence electrons and exists as several allotropes with enormously varying characteristics.  Even in this modern world of false facts, I still find Wikipedia to be reliable, see  Carbon - Wikipedia

Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance on earth, while another allotrope, graphite, is one of the softest.  What makes diamond so hard is that all its electrons are fully occupied forming covalent bonds.  There are no free electrons, making diamond an excellent electrical insulator.  Perversely, it is the best thermal conductor.

From Wikipedia:

The system of carbon allotropes spans a range of extremes:

@faustuss

Yes, following up on your lead I discovered that the 382 uses the piezo electrostatic effect with a passive network to make it electrically like a moving magnet system.  Another 40-year-old design!  The stylus shape is patented but similar to line contact designs.

@zobel 

have been running the same 382 for more than 25 years at 1.25 grams

I think the Micro Acoustics 382 is a moving magnet cartridge, I suspect with removable stylus.  How many playing hours do you estimate you get from one stylus, and what is its tip profile?  Just interested ...

@billstevenson 

Do not worry about things that cannot occur such as diamond tracing vinyl producing electrostatic energy

What a very strange approach you have to science, and the scientific method!

Perhaps you would care, in your spirit of keeping this thread on the straight and narrow, to explain what you mean by this statement, and how you know it cannot occur?

By the way, I do not think anyone has claimed that "diamond tracing vinyl" produces electrostatic energy.  Apart from anything else, as far as we know in our universe, energy (as defined by physics) is always conserved.

Friction between two insulators does cause some electrons to be displaced from the insulator with the lower electron affinity to the one with the higher affinity.  Polyvinyl chloride has one of the highest known electron affinities.  Once again, I trust Wikipedia: Triboelectric effect - Wikipedia.  I quote

It is ubiquitous, and occurs with differing amounts of charge transfer (tribocharge) for all solid materials

Next I would invite you to consider what the consequences of such charges, adhering to the vinyl groove wall, might be? 

I have been ridiculed in this forum for pointing out that electromagnetic forces exceed gravitational forces by about 36 orders of magnitude, according to the Standard Model of particle physics: see Standard Model - Wikipedia

Strength at the scale of protons/neutrons (relative to electromagnetism)

10−36 (predicted)

I hypothesise that these stray electrons will attract any positively charged dust mites and clamp them to the groove wall with tremendous force, where they will cause clicks and pops when traced by the diamond stylus.  Neil’s book shows electron microscope images which would tend to support this hypothesis.

Interestingly, we all (hopefully) know that diamond stylii wear on their contact facets during play.  The bits of diamond that are abraded away are likely to be positively charged (in our universe charge is conserved and the diamond has donated electrons to the vinyl) and will add to the material locked in place in the groove.  And diamond is the best abrasive known to man.

Neil’s book reports an astonishing proportion of diamond dust in the detritus picked up by stylii:

An analysis of the “dust” removed from a number of stylus tips, which had been used on dirty records, showed that it consisted of approximately: 12% jagged silica particles, 35% diamond dust, 40% miscellaneous particles, including soot, grit and particles worn from the record groove itself.  The remaining 13% consisted of fibers and lint. 

My belief is a hypothesis, but seems to be supported by empirical evidence.  If I were smart enough, I should make some predictions that others could test but experimental physics at small scales is both difficult and expensive!

@billstevenson 

As far as I know, Ben Franklin was the last US president to have been an experimental scientist?

He was interested in electrostatic forces, and was renowned for flying a kite into active thunderstorms.  A presidential precedence I would like to see continued today ...

I was rather hoping for a scientific approach to static on vinyl records - how it is caused, what its effects are, and how it is mitigated.

@lewm comes closest by attempting to use a static charge meter, and detecting no change.  But this a gross measurement tool bought to measure electrostatic panel speakers.  The charge of an electron is tiny, at 1.60217663 × 10^-19 coulombs.  Moreover in our universe, as far as we know, charge is always conserved. If the material donating an electron sticks to the vinyl, there would be no net change of charge on the vinyl for any meter to detect.

As the great US physicist Richard Feynman amusingly explains, science can never prove a theory right, but it can prove it wrong.

This video is a must see:  Feynman on Scientific Method.

@dogberry 

Benjamin Franklin will be most surprised to discover that he was US president....

(Though he was President of Pennsylvania prior to the formation of the US).

My mistake!  I remembered from my schooldays that he was a US politician and a president, plus US ambassador to France.  And one of the five founding fathers, I believe?